Sunday, 29 April 2012

We go down to London Wednesday morning to put my work up in the gallery then attend the private view/press night in the evening (Guardian journalists and all sorts have been invited!), hopefully it'll get my work noticed by the right people.

Yesterday we went up to Chesterfield to pick up the big ornate swept frames I invested in for the A3 pieces, they're in them now and it does make a difference, they look really nice :)

But my favourite part of the day came after we picked up the frames...

Those that know me know I'm partial t'watching a bit of snooker, partic if Ronnie O'Sullivan's playing, and a few days ago on Twitter I showed Steve Davis a drawing I'd done of Ronnie back in 2008 in a college sketchbook, and he said 'Very nice!' and retweeted it. My boyfriend and I had mentioned maybe going up to Sheffield during the weekend where they film in the Winter Gardens, as we were going to Chesterfield anyway and that's half way there, and I started getting a little optimistic thought of somehow giving Steve the drawing to pass on to Ronnie. I thought he'd probably not even take any notice but I sent him a tweet saying we were thinking of going to Sheffield at the weekend and asked if there was any possibility of him passing the drawing on if I asked a member of staff to give it to him. And he said he would :D After that I decided I wanted to another one/better one, so I attempted another drawing of him on Friday night, which turn out amazing but I chucked that in an envelope with the old one too. Then did a mini one of Steve and attached it to the front as a little thank you :)

So on Saturday I went over to where they were filming and asked the security chap at the side of the barrier where all the public were standing if he'd pass it to Steve for me, and he said he couldn't do it directly, so he took it off me and went over to another security person, she then walked past Steve and gave it to a guy who seemed like the floor manager or something and said something to him, this guy *then* went over and gave it to Steve Davis who was sitting in his chair next to John Parrott. He looked at it for a minute then said something to the guy, then the guy pointed at the woman who gave it to him, the woman pointed at the security guy I originally gave it to, then he looked at me, so I waved. And he smiled and got up and came and said hello and shook my hand :) He was really nice! Said he thought the little drawing of him was good, and that he'd pass the envelope on to Ronnie and try get some feedback for me. Would be awesome if he does and I hear from Steve again, but if not, at least I've managed to get them to him! And when he went back to his seat he mouthed over 'can I open it?' and I said yeah and he took the drawings out and showed John and Hazel (Irvine, the presenter) hehe.

Sorry if that was completely uninteresting but I was chuffed so I wanted to make note of it all heehee!

I can spot myself on this hehe

Today I did a drawing of Louis Theroux. Took about 3 and a half hours I think, all drawn out in biro, with some white pencil highlights and some extra shading in pencil at the end.

Friday, 13 April 2012

I am going to be selling a run of just 30 A3 giclée prints of my Anna Fur Laxis portrait. Each print will be signed and numbered. They will cost £50 which includes p+p within the UK and will be available to send out within the next couple of weeks. If you are interested and would like to reserve one please contact me at becky.artist@hotmail.com

A few have been snapped up already since I announced these prints on Facebook earlier this evening so if you want to get your hands on one I'd recommend getting in touch sooner rather than later.

I am also planning on doing a limited run of prints of my recent Missy Malone portrait.

Saturday, 7 April 2012

Still plodding on with my exhibition work, I find myself wanting to do some drawing/painting most days lately so that's good :)

I have this oil painting in progress of Velma Von Bon Bon

And tonight I did some preliminary sketches for another final piece featuring Anna Fur Laxis

Had a bit of a disappointment at the end of last week, as I found out I have less space at this forthcoming exhibition than I had thought. Seems like there was a misunderstanding, and it's not that I have a small amount of space now, just that it is less than I thought and was planning for, so I won't be able to show as much work as I had thought, and stuff is going to need to be laid out a bit more compact and such. So it's just a bit annoying when you think one thing but then find out a while later it isn't the case so messes with what you'd been planning in your head you know? But oh well.

Still uber excited about it, particularly now I'm not stressing so much about getting work done as I'm 'in the zone' hehe. Still aiming to have my 6 A4ish pieces up alongside a couple of larger/A3 ones too.

Also, have got the reference shot from the Andy Hollingworth/Chris Stokes shoot at the start of the month, and I'm hoping to at least get started on that portrait before the month's out too. Failing that, definitely by the end of the May.

May should be a busy but exciting month for Becky :) First gallery exhibition, a trip to Ireland, my birthday, and the 3 years mark for Alan and I. Busy, but good!

Thursday, 5 April 2012

As I don't have much of an income at all t the moment, buying expensive frames for this exhibition next month wasn't a priority, I wanted to focus on the work itself and getting plenty done. So I got some mismatched frames and painted them with some duck egg paint I bought, I quite liked the idea of having mismatched styles in the same colour, a bit quirky and shabby chic. But today I went into a framers with the Missy drawing to see how it would look in a different frame, or whether they have any more ornate frames for my larger A3 planned pieces, and saw some wonderful swept frames, but they were around £25 each. I've managed to find them for sliiiightly less on the internet, but it's still an awful lot to me.

My question is do you think frames make a big difference? Would be people be more likely to pay more for artwork if the frame looks more expensive and more ornate? They probably would, but enough more to actually cover the frame costs do you think? Also I've got to bare in mind that I probably wont be making much if I do sell anything at the exhibition due to the commission, so is it worth splashing out on such lovely frames?

Maybe keep the smaller A4 and below pieces in the duck egg shabby chic esque ones as above, and splash out on 2 or 3 fancy large ones for the few bigger pieces?

Example of how this style of drawing would look in the frames I have my eye on, I like the white and cream...it does seem to compliment the artwork well, is it worth the price difference tho...

Tuesday, 3 April 2012

Got my 5th piece for the exhibition started today (the others are generally unfinished though so it's not like I have several completely pieces, there's still plenty of work to be done...)

This one is a biro portrait of Missy Malone. I just scanned it and can see so many things standing out as being wrong. The eyes, the eyebrows, her ear, her jaw/side of neck... going to try rectify it as best I can tomorrow.

It doesn't half help when you scan something, you notice flaws that you don't see by just looking at it on the page really...which is a good thing I guess as the people who see it in person may not be as struck by the things that are wrong as I am...

Having said that, I am overall happy with this one, and I'm also feeling more confident about having work for the exhibition :)

Here's a preview of the other four...

I know I want to do at least one more, so that will make it 6, shall see if I do any further ones.

Also have a commission to get going with for comedian Chris Stokes now too as he forwarded a snap from his shoot with Andy earlier today, so I need to bare that in mind this month as well, going to be busy.

Monday, 2 April 2012

I revisited my 'Dive!' tea and biccies illustration today and came up with this...

I was originally playing about with card design in mind but I'm not sure if it work, too general for an A5 size card, would be better suited for notecards ie smaller ones like A6, but I need to come up with something for A5 size as I bought credit for some in that size on a printing site that I need to use this month...

This would probably just look better if it was used for little posters or something.

Had a reminder earlier that it's just 4 weeks until the exhibition and I'm not happy with any of my pieces. I've got 3 started, 3 more or less finished as seen in the previous post, but one really only just started, and I was aiming to get a fair few more done. Also, they're only A4, everyone else will be working massive I think.

Worry.

Got some random frames in charity shops last week at least. Went for some mismatchy ones but have painted them all in the same colour paint (duck egg pale blue/green), to give them a bit of character.

Here's a scan of the full sketchbook page I posted a snap of, I do like this page :)